The term Midwest has been in common use for over 100 years. A variant term, "Middle West", has been in use since the 19th century and remains relatively common.[3] Another term sometimes applied to the same general region is "the heartland".[4] Other designations for the region have fallen into disuse, such as the "Northwest" or "Old Northwest" (from "Northwest Territory") and "Mid-America". Since the book Middletown appeared in 1929, sociologists have often used Midwestern cities (and the Midwest generally) as "typical" of the entire nation.[5] The region has a higher employment-to-population ratio (the percentage of employed people at least 16 years old) than the Northeast, the West, the South, or the Sun Belt states.[6]

Physical geography

While these states are for the most part relatively flat, consisting either of plains or of rolling and small hills, there is a measure of geographical variation. In particular, the eastern Midwest near the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains; the Great Lakes Basin; the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri; the rugged topography of Southern Indiana; and the Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota, and northeast Iowa exhibit a high degree of topographical variety. Prairies cover most of the states west of the Mississippi River with the exception of taiga-clad northern Minnesota. Illinois lies within an area called the "prairie peninsula", an eastward extension of prairies that borders deciduous forests to the north, east, and south. Rainfall decreases from east to west, resulting in different types of prairies, with the tallgrass prairie in the wetter eastern region, mixed-grass prairie in the central Great Plains, and shortgrass prairie towards the rain shadow of the Rockies. Today, these three prairie types largely correspond to the corn/soybean area, the wheat belt, and the western rangelands, respectively. Although hardwood forests in the northern Midwest were clear-cut in the late 1800s, they were replaced by new growth. Ohio and Michigan's forests are still growing. The majority of the Midwest can now be categorized as urbanized areas or pastoral agricultural areas.

Early settlement began either via routes over the Appalachian Mountains, such as Braddock Road, or through the waterways of the Great Lakes. Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) at the source of the Ohio River was an early outpost of the overland routes. The first settlements in the Midwest via the waterways of the Great Lakes were centered around military forts and trading posts such as Green Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, and Detroit. The first inland settlements via the overland routes were in southern Ohio or northern Kentucky, on either side of the Ohio River, and early such pioneers included Daniel Boone and Spencer Records.

The region's fertile soil made it possible for farmers to produce abundant harvests of cereal crops such as corn, oats, and, most importantly, wheat. The region soon became known as the nation's "breadbasket".

Development of transportation

Two waterways have been important to the development of the Midwest. The first and foremost was the Ohio River, which flowed into the Mississippi River. Development of the region was halted until 1795 due to Spain's control of the southern part of the Mississippi and its refusal to allow the shipment of American crops down the river and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Lake Michigan is shared by four Midwestern states: Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Inland canals in Ohio and Indiana constituted another important waterway, which connected with Great Lakes and Ohio River traffic. The commodities that the Midwest funneled into the Erie Canal down the Ohio River contributed to the wealth of New York City, which overtook Boston and Philadelphia. New York State would proudly boast of the Midwest as its "inland empire"; thus, New York would become known as the Empire State.

19th century sectional conflict

The Northwest Ordinance region, comprising the heart of the Midwest, was the first large region of the United States that prohibited slavery (the Northeastern United Statesemancipated slaves in the 1830s). The regional southern boundary was the Ohio River, the border of freedom and slavery in American history and literature (see Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Beloved by Toni Morrison). The Midwest, particularly Ohio, provided the primary routes for the "Underground Railroad", whereby Midwesterners assisted slaves to freedom from their crossing of the Ohio River through their departure on Lake Erie to Canada.

The U.S. was predominantly rural at the time of the Civil War. The Midwest was no exception, dotted with small farms all across the region. The late nineteenth century saw industrialization, immigration, and urbanization that fed the Industrial Revolution, and the heart of industrial domination and innovation was in the Great Lakes states of the Midwest, which only began its slow decline by the late twentieth century.

In the 20th century, African American migration from the Southern United States into the Midwestern states changed Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Gary, Detroit, Minneapolis, and many other cities in the Midwest dramatically, as factories and schools enticed families by the thousands to new opportunities.

History of the term Midwest

As this region lies mostly in the eastern half of the United States, the term "Midwest" can be misleading if one does not understand American history.

The term West was applied to the region in the early years of the country. In 1789, the Northwest Ordinance was enacted, creating the Northwest Territory, which was bounded by the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Because the Northwest Territory lay between the East Coast and the then-far-West, the states carved out of it were called the "Northwest". In the early 19th century, anything west of the Mississippi River was considered the West, and the Midwest was the region east of the Mississippi and west of the Appalachians. In time, some users began to include Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri in the Midwest. With the settlement of the western prairie, the new term Great Plains States was used for the row of states from North Dakota to Kansas. Later, these states also came to be considered Midwest by some.

The states of the "old Northwest" are now called the "East North Central States" by the United States Census Bureau and the "Great Lakes" region by some of its inhabitants, whereas the states just west of the Mississippi and the Great Plains states are called the "West North Central States" by the Census Bureau. Today people as far west as eastern Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, and southward into Oklahoma sometimes identify themselves with the term Midwest.[8] Some parts of the Midwest are still referred to as "Northwest" for historical reasons – for example, Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines and Northwestern University in Illinois – so the Northwest region of the country is called the "Pacific Northwest" to make a clear distinction.

Judaism and Islam are each practiced by 1% or less of the population, with higher concentrations in major urban areas, such as Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Cleveland.[citation needed] Those with no religious affiliation make up 13–16% of the Midwest's population.[citation needed] Around 50% of the people in the Midwest regularly attend church.[10]

The rural heritage of the land in the Midwest remains widely held, even if industrialization and suburbanization have overtaken the states in the original Northwest Territory.

Cultural overlap with neighboring regions

Differences in the definition of the Midwest mainly split between the Heartland and the Great Plains on one side, and the Great Lakes and the Rust Belt on the other. While some point to the small towns and agricultural communities in Kansas, Iowa, the Dakotas, and Nebraska of the Great Plains as representative of traditional Midwestern lifestyles and values, others assert that the declining Rust Belt cities of the Great Lakes – with their histories of 19th- and early-20th-century immigration, manufacturing base, and strong Catholic influence – are more representative of the Midwestern experience.

Certain areas of the traditionally defined Midwest are often cited as not being representative of the region, while other areas traditionally outside of the Midwest are often claimed to be part of the Midwest. These claims often embody historical, cultural, economic or demographic arguments for inclusion or exclusion. Perceptions of the proper classification of the Midwest also vary within the region, and tend toward exclusion rather than inclusion.

Two other regions, Appalachia and the Ozark Mountains, overlap geographically with the Midwest – Appalachia in Southern Ohio and the Ozarks in Southern Missouri. The Ohio River has long been the boundary between North and South and between the Midwest and the Upper South. All of the lower Midwestern states, including Missouri, have a major Southern component, but only Missouri was a slave state before the Civil War.

Although Kentucky is considered Midwestern by some,[12] reflecting its heritage as a border state that remained in the Union during the Civil War, it is categorized as Southern by the Census Bureau.

Political trends

One of the two major political parties in the United States, the Republican Party, originated in Ripon, in east-central Wisconsin, in the 1850s. It included opposition to the spread of slavery into new states as one of its agendas.

Midwestern political caution is sometimes peppered with protest, especially in minority communities or those associated with agrarian, labor, or populist roots. This was especially true in the early 20th century, when Milwaukee was a hub of the Socialist movement in the United States, electing three Socialist mayors and the only Socialist Congressional representative (Victor L. Berger) during that time. The metropolis-strewn Great Lakes region tends to be the most liberal area of the Midwest, and liberal presence diminishes gradually as one moves south and west from that region into the less-populated rural areas.[citation needed] The Great Lakes region has spawned politicians such as the La Follette political family, labor leader and five-time Socialist Party of America presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, and Communist Party leader Gus Hall. Minnesota has produced liberal national politicians Paul Wellstone, Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, and Hubert Humphrey, and protest musician Bob Dylan.

The region is now home to many critical swing states that do not have strong allegiance to either the Democratic or Republican party. Upper Midwestern states, such as Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa have proven reliably Democratic. Normally a Republican stronghold, Indiana became a key state in the 2006 mid-term elections, picking up three House Seats to bring the total to five Democrats to four Republicans representing Indiana in the U.S. House. In 2008, Indiana voted for the Democratic candidate for the first time in 44 years. Prior to the most recent presidential election, Missouri had supported the winning candidate all but one time since the beginning of the twentieth century,[citation needed] making it possibly the most significant swing state in the country next to Ohio.

The state government of Illinois is currently dominated by the Democratic Party. Both Illinois senators are Democrats and a majority of the state's U.S. Representatives are also Democrats. Illinois voters have preferred the Democratic presidential candidate by a significant margin in the past five elections (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008). The same is true of Michigan and Wisconsin, which also currently have Democratic governors and two Democratic senators. Iowa is considered by many analysts to be the most evenly divided state in the country, but has leaned Democratic for the past fifteen years or so.

Iowa has a Democratic governor, a Democratic Senator, three Democratic Congressmen out of five, has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in four out of the last five elections, (1992, 1996, 2000, 2008). As of the 2006 mid-term elections, Iowa has a state legislature dominated by Democrats in both chambers. Minnesota voters have chosen the Democratic candidate for president longer than any other state. Minnesota was the only U.S. state (along with Washington, D.C.) to vote for Walter Mondale over Ronald Reagan in 1984 (Minnesota is Mondale's home state). In Iowa and Minnesota, however, the recent Democratic pluralities have often been fairly narrow. Minnesota has elected and re-elected a Republican governor, as well as supported some of the strongest gun concealment laws in the nation.

In 2006, Democrats scored major gains across the region. In Iowa, Democrats gained control of the state legislature and held onto the governor's mansion, giving them one-party control of Iowa's government. Elsewhere, Democrats gained control of the Wisconsin Senate, the Michigan Legislature, and the Indiana House. Minnesota, thought to be trending Republican, saw the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) post double-digit gains in the Minnesota House and win all state-wide elections, save for the gubernatorial race. Democrats also won all state-wide races in Ohio, and gained control of all Illinois statewide offices. On a federal level, Democrat Sherrod Brown defeated Republican incumbent Mike DeWine 56-44 for the U.S. Senate.

By contrast, the Great Plains states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas have been strongholds for the Republicans for many decades. These four states have gone for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1940, except for Lyndon B. Johnson's landslide over Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Barack Obama's capture of one electoral vote in Nebraska in 2008. However, North Dakota's Congressional delegation has been all-Democratic since 1987, and South Dakota has had at least two Democratic members of Congress in every year since 1987. Nebraska has elected Democrats to the Senate and as Governor in recent years, but the state's House delegation has been all-Republican since 1995. Kansas has elected a majority of Democrats as governor since 1956 but has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.

Missouri is considered a "bellwether state". Only twice since 1904 has the Show-Me-State not voted for the winner in the presidential election, in 1956 and in 2008. Missouri's House delegation has generally been evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, with the Democrats holding sway in the large cities at the opposite ends of the state, Kansas City and St. Louis, and the Republicans controlling the rest of the state. Missouri's Senate seats were mostly controlled by Democrats until the latter part of the 20th century, but the Republicans have held one or both Senate seats continuously since the 1976 elections.

Linguistic characteristics

The accents of the region are generally distinct from those of the South and of the urban areas of the American Northeast. To a lesser degree, they are also distinct from the accent of the American West.

The accent characteristic of most of the Midwest is considered by many to be "standard" American English. This accent is preferred by many national radio and television broadcasters.

LEGEND: The superscript ₥ links to the region's map, italics indicates a link to a related wikiarticle, numbers in parenthesis (0+1) indicate the number of full and partial states, and a "/" indicates an ambiguous # of states.